Chuck and Friends

At a Columbia Political Union event last semester, Amy Klobuchar, Democratic Senator from Minnesota, was reminiscing about a Halloween costume she wore in high school. Her Purple Rain outfit inspired by musician Prince was great, Klobuchar explained, but she lost the costume contest to someone dressed as a bathroom wall. Klobuchar’s legislative director, sitting in the front row, shook her head at the digression.

“No?” Klobuchar asked, turning to the staffer, who kept shaking her head. The Senator changed the subject. Moira Campion, the woman who intervened to avert the anecdote, is a former employee of New York Senator Chuck Schumer—a fact Klobuchar went out of her way to mention.

Schumer was head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), the Party organization that oversees Senate races, for the 2006 and 2008 election cycles. During his tenure, he brought Klobuchar and thirteen other new Democratic senators to Washington, raising his caucus from a 45-seat minority to a commanding 59-seat majority. (Assuming Al Franken’s victory in Minnesota.)

Schumer was heavily involved in selecting many Democratic nominees and, among other requirements, mandated approval over the hiring of some staffers including, perhaps, Campion. She is one of the myriad graduates from Schumer’s office now ensconced in the upper echelons of Democratic politics.

Both as legislators and campaigners, Schumer and his staffers have shown an extraordinary ability to secure political victories. As a result, his ethos has permeated the party both through his leadership and the ubiquity of former staffers like Campion. But the same drive for victory that Schumer demands from himself and the cloud of people around him may be a liability for Democrats.

WELCOME TO SCHUMERLAND

And yet, at the height of the Democratic drive to wrest control from the Republicans, the value of his former staffers to the Party—always known in American politics as political operatives par excellence—rose higher than ever.

The rule of thumb, explained a former Schumer staffer, who requested anonymity, is “if they [potential hires] worked for Schumer, you should hire them on the spot.” Schumer’s office operates as a farm team for the rest of the Party, and the reasons why are well understood. The Senator is known for selecting the best young talent. His indefatigable work ethic is legendary. He will call staffers to talk about news coverage well into the evening and call again soon after sunrise. Current spokesman Justin Vlasto answers 2,000 email messages a day and carries two cell phones everywhere.

“He runs a tight ship,” said ex-press intern Josh Stein. “It’s a very intense office.”

Though demanding, Schumer is dedicated to his staff. He refers to his personnel as family, and he’s not kidding—Schumer’s wife is a former employee. As a result, his staff becomes a tight-knit group. “My experience has been that the employees bond together in the same way that soldiers bond through war,” said a former staffer. This extended band of brothers and sisters refers to itself as ‘Schumerland,’ a term that has become common parlance throughout New York politics.

It is difficult to know to where the borders of Schumerland extend, but the available data is impressive. The chief spokesmen for State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, Governor Patterson and Mayor Bloomberg—the three most important figures in New York politics—were trained under Schumer. His alumni were all over Hillary Clinton’s Presidential campaign, and at least five New York congressmen, as well as City Council speaker Quinn, have Schumer grads on their upper-level staff. Prospective mayoral candidate and current congressman Anthony Weiner was a Schumer protégé, and at least five state assemblymen, a state senator and a few City Councilmen were Schumer apprentices. Outside of New York, quasi-Senator Al Franken and Senator Barbara Boxer of California have employed Schumerites. These numbers are just the tip of the iceberg.

As the reach of his alumni has widened, Schumer has become one of the most powerful men in American politics. Officially, he is the vice chairman for the Senate Dems—the third ranking Senator in the party—but his influence is far greater than that title implies. He has a very close relationship with Majority Leader Harry Reid, whom he talks to four or five times every day. Schumer is also friendly with Obama’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel, whose intensity is often compared with that of the New York senator.

“I’ve talked to him a few times already,” Mr. Schumer said to the New York Observer just five days after Emanuel was selected as Obama’s Chief of Staff. “He is going to keep it focused. Rahm and I always get along and we think similarly in certain ways.” And Sean Sweeney, a top Emmanuel aide with a West Wing office, worked for Schumer. Schumer has also been a major legislative player, integral to the passage of countless landmark bills since he came to Washington as a congressman in 1980. While working on these national issues, he has remained focused on his constituents. In early February, he brokered a deal so that Drake’s Cakes, a New York sweets company, could emerge from bankruptcy. His work saved about 200 city jobs. “The joke in the office was, if there were three people stuck waiting on line at a phone booth, we would send a representative to help them,” said former Schumer staffer and current State Assemblyman Alan Maisel in an interview with CPR.

That small-scale attention is classic Schumer, and his care for constituents has helped him remain as successful at home as he is within the Party. For his 2004 Senate reelection race, he garnered 71 percent of the vote—the least competitive race in New York statewide election history.

BUSINESS TIES

One reason Schumer has been so successful, both as a politician and a party operative, is his fundraising prowess. “He’s not afraid to hear no, and he won’t take no for an answer,” said a former staffer. Schumer has passed that tenacity onto others. In an interview with the National Journal, Senator Klobuchar recounted an incident where, during the early stages of her race, Schumer shook his finger in her face and commanded, “You’re going to raise one million in the first quarter.”

Wall Street has always been a fecund fundraising ground. During his term at the DSCC, Wall Street donations to the Committee increased by 50 percent—totaling four times the Wall Street money donated to Senate Republicans. As an individual, he has received more money from securities and investment firms than any other member of the Senate who has not run for President.

Funding from his business connections was vital to victories in 2006 and 2008, but they have left Schumer beholden to Wall Street firms—ironic in light of his recent book, Positively American: Winning Back the Middle Class Majority One Family at a Time. Before the economic collapse last year, Schumer, a powerful voice on financial issues due to his seat on the Banking Committee, was arguably the most pro-business Democrat in the Senate.

In 1997, he opposed new disclosure rules for derivatives, a form of financial asset whose loosely regulated trading precipitated the current economic crisis. He was a proponent of the Gramm-Leach-Biley Act two years later, which removed numerous Depression-era regulations on banks. The law allowed financial institutions to grow beyond what the law had previously permitted. The bill’s critics asserted that these oversized banks could be an economic hazard, since the failure of one of these institutions could cripple the economy and require government bailouts.

On business issues, Schumer was also often aligned with former Republican Senator Phil Gramm. Gramm, an economic advisor for the McCain campaign, was forced to resign from that post after he called America “a nation of whiners” for their kvetching about the economy. In the liberal investigative journal Mother Jones, Gramm was criticized for lucrative links with Enron before it went bust, and for pushing anti-regulatory legislation that may have fomented the subprime crisis. Schumer cosponsored a law with Gramm reducing capital taxes to the SEC and electricity deregulation legislation that greatly benefitted Enron. Schumer received nearly $70,000 from Enron and their accounting firm Arthur Andersen for his first senate campaign in 1998.

As Wall Street money has flooded Democratic coffers, the Party and Schumer risk tarnishing their middle class image and adopting the pro-business reputation that has been a major liability for Republicans. Thanks to disgraced lawmakers like Governor Blagojevich, failed cabinet nominee Tom Daschle and a shoal of others, Democrats have already disinherited the anti-corruption reputation vital to recent gains. In addition to expressing derision at the tarnish from these various scandals, Americans are unabashedly furious with the financial sector. With Democrats as the party of bank bailouts, which Schumer ardently advocated from the beginning, that anger could bolster Republican efforts to reclaim power.

POST-POST-PARTISANSHIP

Along with their pro-corporate image, Republicans have suffered from a reputation as virulently partisan, unwilling to work with Democrats and underhanded in their campaign tactics. These charges were exemplified by the advent of ‘Swift-boating’ advertisements in 2004. If his past is any indication, Schumer could bring about a similar view of Democrats, even though he trends Republican on business issues.

Before elections in 2006, Schumer berated the Bush administration for a port security deal with a Dubai-based company. Though such contracts are routine, Schumer made the deal a nationally covered issue, even holding a press conference with 9/11 families. The hullaballoo was a clear (and wildly successful) attack on Republicans as weak on foreign policy. Yet Schumer’s criticism, both spurious and beneficial to big business, began after an American port company lobbied him to kill the contract. Last year, in a move intended to play up financial troubles under Bush, Schumer sent a public letter to government regulators about IndyMac bank. In the letter, which his office provided to news publications, Schumer wrote that IndyMac “could face failure if prescriptive measures are not taken quickly.” The already struggling bank faced a spike in withdrawals after his letter and failed soon thereafter. The press release was by no means the primary reason why the bank fell, but Schumer may have hammered the last nail in IndyMac’s coffin. In August, what began as Schumer’s attempt to discredit Republicans ended with the California Attorney General considering an investigation of Schumer's role in the meltdown.

Both of these slugs at Republicans during election years are a far cry from the age of Obama post-partisanship, and if Schumer and former staffers in other offices continue to employ similar tactics, it could limit the Democrats’ ability to appear more bipartisan than their predecessors in the majority. Subverting Schumerland

Schumer may have given up his DSCC chairmanship but, thanks to his connections to Reid, Rahm and his protégés, his political presence has expanded, especially in New York. Kirsten Gillibrand, who replaced Hillary Clinton as New York’s junior senator, wholeheartedly embraces Schumer’s mentorship. He has been instrumental in her “evolution” from conservative upstate representative to a far more liberal senator palatable to downstate Democrats, and at least one ex-Schumer staffer works in Gillibrand’s office.

The first inklings of Schumer-based attacks began last year. During his 2008 reelection campaign, Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky released a video that made the rounds in the punditocracy attacking Schumer as a conniving outsider meddling in Kentucky politics.

As Schumer’s stock rises and other Democratic politicians find their hyper-political handlers shaking their heads at off-message remarks, Republicans could very well continue to exploit the Schumer persona to their advantage. If Democrats are not careful, the man instrumental to their recent Congressional gains could dismantle what he spent years building up.